Boxing Day

As you may or may not know, today is Boxing Day, a holiday of British origin, and celebrated there in in the UK, as well as such places as Canada and Australia. Being a fellow who likes to be in the spirit of the holidays, I called my good friend Clive, who is a gent of British origin living down in south these days. I wanted to wish him a Happy Boxing Day, and to remind him to keep his gloves up and his chin tucked in lest his lovely wife stretch him out with an uppercut. Clive patiently explained that Boxing Day isn't about pugilism, and besides that, the missus just got lucky last year.

"So what is Boxing Day?", I asked. And my education on the subject commenced.

Boxing Day, also known as St Stephen's Day, is the practice of giving goods or money to the more needy. How it got is name seems to be not quite so straight forward.

Theories abound, from alms being collected in the church poor box for distribution, to servants carrying empty boxes to work to be filled with money or a gift of goods from their masters as a sort of end of year bonus for good service. While some stories give the image of a class conscious society (apparently giving a return gift on Boxing Day was considered a statement of equality and not done), however the optimist in me prefers the image of charity towards those who really need it Call me sentimental, but I really do believe it was meant to be that way.

Thanking Clive for the enlightenment, I felt I owed him something for his trouble. So I shared with him the only useful information I had at that moment. "Keep your gloves up!"

It's the Thought That Counts

Well, I started this this around Halloween, and now it is Christmas. The similarities abound. Both are holidays that are anticipated, and primarily for, the children. And while Halloween is notable for ghost stories, Christmas is associated with one of the most famous and most often retold ghost stories. And despite the title of this blog, it is okay to read A Christmas Carol when you are home alone.

All to often, we get caught up in the gift giving, and worry more about the gift than about the thought. This is a story about how the thought really does count.

It was 1984, and as a young sailor, I had just reported to my ship, the USS Josephus Daniels, on the first of December. I was an incoming member of the sonar gang, and I had an opportunity to have a brief acquaintance with an outgoing member named Thomas C Ferry, better known as TC. He was scheduled to leave the ship in a day or two, and he was engaged in making a Christmas Tree out of whatever materials he had at hand, to give a little holiday cheer for his friends that he was leaving behind. As an additional gesture to his friends who would not be going home for Christmas, he left small wrapped gifts behind. My association with TC consisted of one or two very short conversations as he hurried through his preparations to go home, and inheriting his bunk when he left.

Fast forwarding to Christmas Day, I was on watch in Sonar Control that morning, and doing a fine job of feeling sorry for myself. It was my first Christmas away from home, and I was feeling quite alone. Everyone else had gone down to open the Christmas gifts left by TC. I had not really known him, so I was feeling left out by not having a present. But as I was relieved from the watch, and was heading down to Christmas dinner (one of two meals prepared on the ship that you would actually want to eat, the other being Thanksgiving dinner), my watch section supervisor asked me if I was going to go below and open my present. I was shocked! Even though he did not really know me,TC left me a present. I was not alone. I was one of the gang! The present consisted of a plastic container to hold my soap, and two Snickers bars. A small present, but it really was the thought that counted.

Please accept my wish for a happy and safe holiday season to my friends, and to readers of my blog.